... and, in general, one could easily substitute a series of ".bat" files for an ide, given an editor with which one's comfortable, a suitable simulator, a linker, and, if desired, a compiler. Such a thing will probably never be available for Windows, as it takes too much effort to generate the support programs, but under DOS, which is what we old-timers used before 1990, nearly anything is straightforward by comparison.

I've never even found a decent simulator for the 805x, i.e. one that I can recommend for someone trying 805x out for the first time, as most of them seem to be code-space limited. The result has been that nearly everyone I've introduced to MCU's has gone with the PIC rather than with the 805x. The most important thing, I guess, is that they're available everywhere, while, no matter what, current 805x's are hard for the average hobbyist/learner to buy. I tried, once, getting them for students through the university book store, but it took so long to set up the supply chain, that the term was over before it could happen. The next version of the course was taught using the small PIC's, which, at that time, were available at Radio Shack.com.

BTW, the last time I attempted to buy Philips/NXP parts through distribution, I encountered an 18-week delay.

RE